Syria promotes unexperienced Bashar

Published: Monday, June 12, 2000

DAMASCUS, Syria {AP} The Western-educated Bashar Assad comes from a new generation of computer-savvy entrepreneurs who could help modernize Syria, but the former eye doctor has yet to be tested in the shifting sands of Middle East politics.

In the two days since the death of President Hafez Assad, the Syrian leadership has significantly pumped Bashar's resume and plastered more portraits of him along the streets of Damascus signs that the 34-year-old will likely take his father's place in a matter of weeks.

On Sunday, he was named commander in chief of Syria's armed forces a post his father had held and was promoted from army colonel to lieutenant-general. And the ruling Baath party nominated him for president a day after parliament conveniently lowered the age bar for president from 40 to 34. Bashar turns 35 in September.

It's an unlikely ascent for a man who, until 1994, was quietly practicing ophthalmology in Britain, where he had pursued specialized studies after graduating from Damascus University's medical school.

The sudden death of his elder brother Basil widely believed to have been his father's first choice as heir in a 1994 car crash, brought Bashar home.

If, as expected, the parliament approves Bashar's nomination to the presidency, the untested leader will find himself thrown into intermittent peacemaking with Israel, a new reality in Lebanon with the withdrawal of Israeli forces last month, and disputes with neighbors over borders and water rights.